This invention relates to bread making and, more particularly, to oxidizing agents useful in bread making.
For many years, oxidizing agents have been used to modify the protein in wheat flour to promote desired bread characteristics as large loaf volume, strong side walls, fine grain, smooth texture, and bright-white crumb color. These are used in all of the conventional methods of making bread including continuous mix, brew process, straight dough, sponge dough, and short-time dough processes. While many oxidizing agents have been used, the most widely used material is a mixture of potassium bromate and potassium iodate.
The use of iodate in bread has been criticized by several groups because of flavor problems and possible undesirable characteristics. Presently, the FDA permits a total of 77 ppm. (based on flour weight) of total bromate and iodate. In practice, bromate is used in an amount of from two to four times the amount of iodate.
Ascorbic acid has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,149,682, issued Mar. 7, 1939, as an oxidant capable of improving the baking strength of flour. However, the material was seen to be unstable, apparently due to the fact that, in marked distinction from earlier known oxidants, it is a strong reducing agent possessing the property of being easily decomposed by oxidation. U.S. Pat. No. 2,300,439, issued Nov. 3, 1942, shows one attempt at overcoming this problem in the use of ascorbic acid. More recently, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,304,183, issued to Johnson on Feb. 14, 1967, ascorbic acid is suggested as a reducing agent in continuous mix bread. However, it is there used for the purpose of reducing mixing time and a conventional bromate-iodate oxidizing agent is also employed. Johnson carefully points out that the action of ascorbic acid is totally different than the bromate or iodate oxidizing agents. In fact, Johnson discloses that the use of ascorbic acid as a replacement for bromate or iodate results in bread with inferior characteristics and that it is only when used with these agents that mixing time can be realized while producing bread of acceptable quality. We have discovered, quite surprisingly, that bromate or iodate oxidizing agent can be effectively replaced with ascorbic acid and that bread of excellent characteristics can be produced by continuous mix or by any other conventional bread making technique. Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to utilize ascorbic acid as an oxidizing agent for making bread by any conventional bread making process. It is a further object to replace iodate with ascorbic acid and produce bread by any conventional process with characteristics at least as good as those possessed by bread made in the same manner with iodate oxidizing agent.